To promote innovation, community service, and career development among UC Berkeley students, CITRIS sponsored a semester-long competition for undergraduate and graduate students to develop mobile apps for social impact. At the start of the Spring 2015 semester, 17 teams and more than 60 students applied for the Challenge to develop apps in the following categories:
- Civic Tech & Smart Communities
- Education
- Energy, Climate & The Environment
- Health
On Tuesday, May 5th, six finalist teams presented during a public Demo Day event to a panel of judges that included socially-minded technology and education leaders. The event culminated in a showcase of the students’ apps and presentation of awards to the following teams:
- Grand Prize of $2500: Snapily
- Runner-up Prize of $1500: WeEat
- People’s Choice for $1000: Snapily
Congratulations to the all of the winners and participants! We’d also like to thank each of our judges for their time and feedback for the students: Katherine Harris (Microsoft), Claudia Willis (AT&T), Rani Yadav-Ranjan (i4Pia), Dorothy Miller (UCOP) and Camille Crittenden (CITRIS).
Meet the winners
Grand Prize & People’s Choice
Snapily
Snapily won both the $2500 Grand Prize and the $1000 People’s Choice award for their mobile grocery shopping app that offers convenient grocery pickups for at-risk Oakland residents.
(L-R): Becca Stanger, Todor Tzolov, Irina Lozhkina and Matt Valente
Runner Up Prize:
WeEat
Team WeEat won the $1500 runner-up prize for their on-demand social scheduling platform for users to have shared meals and conversations.
(L-R) Zachary Zeleznick & Fadi Kfoury. (Not pictured: Ziheng Lin and Sid Feygin)
Sponsors and Judges Reflect on the CITRIS Mobile App Challenge
“The CITRIS mobile app challenge was a great showcase of what students are capable of and how they can change the future. – Katherine Harris, Microsoft
“I felt that the UC Berkeley students were very engaged in providing solutions to everyday problems. The teams delivered quality applications that could have an immediate impact. Very inspiring students who are committed to the social good.” – Claudia Willis, AT&T
“The CITRIS Mobile App Challenge provides experience that helps students develop their ideas, grow their networks and enhance their employment skills, accelerating their efforts to make our society a better place. It’s inspiring to see the students team up to do social good.” – Alec Rosenberg, University of California Office of the President
Watch the Demo Day videos from the UC Berkeley teams >
WalkwithTalk
WalkwithTalk links our existing Facebook community to walking with those we already know, by a GPS and scheduling match basis to encourage users to lead a more active and health lifestyle.
Snapily
Snapily is mobile grocery shopping app offering convenient grocery pickups for at-risk Oakland residents.
Gyaan
The power of English literacy ignites imagination in children and opens the world of opportunities. Gyaan is a collaborative, inquiry-based, leveled reading ecosystem designed to reach those without access to Internet or smartphones. With the help of this platform, we aim to improve English reading competency of early grade students in India.
CrowdLearn
CrowdLearn is a crowdsource online learning platform. Every person learns differently and often times, the online curriculum is just not enough. We want to change that. Our platform offers multiple ways to learn, from videos to practice problems to just plain old text. You decide how you want to learn.
WeEat
WeEat is an on-demand social scheduling platform for shared meals and conversations. weEAT connects friends and individuals nearby, and adapts to user preferences. Users are able to communicate seamlessly and connect to their desired match without interrupting flow of their busy lives. Through leveraging contextual information in complement with behavioral models, we will provide the best user experience and discover new insights about consumer tastes and preferences.
SeedIt
Seedit is a smart gardening app that takes data from your seed provider, and looks at the weather in your region) to give you exact data on what you should be doing with your plant. It will remind you with push notifications when you should water, harvest, or perform any other action on your plant to make everything easier for you.
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The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute drive interdisciplinary innovation for social good with faculty researchers and students from four University of California campuses – Berkeley, Davis, Merced, and Santa Cruz – along with public and private partners.
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